Children's Liturgy Sunday May 6th 2007

Fifth Sunday of Easter 2007

The Fifth Sunday of Easter

Today our liturgy was led by Sister Maura, who lives in Australia, but is visiting her family in the parish at the moment. Sister Maura told us how to say Good Morning in the Aboriginal language and in Gaelic and asked if we knew any other languages. Someone remembered "Buenos dias" from their Spanish.We learnt how to make the sign of the cross in Gaelic.

In today's Gospel Jesus says, "Love one another as I have loved you". We thought about the ways in which we can show love. Sister Maura told us the story of a child who always took a comforting toy to school with them. One day, a new child arrived. She was very frightened and began to cry, at which the first child gave her their special toy to keep. That was a sign of great love.

The other day, Sister Maura struggled to lift her mother's wheelchair on to the bus. The driver left his seat to help her- there was another way to show love.

Sister Maura noticed a colourful card in a shop- it could have been a message from God to us all, because it said,
" For the one I love,
With all my love."
She told us to look out for messages such as this all around us.

We also think about Mary during the month of May.
Sister Maura set up a little altar to Mary with a blue cloth, because blue is a colour often associated with Mary. She also brought a white cloth which belonged to her Mum. This was made specially for the Queen's Silver Jubilee!
Mary is often painted wearing blue and white.
Sister Maura brought a picture of Mary holding the baby Jesus which is sometimes known as Our Lady of Ireland, or Mary of the Way.

Sister put a large rosary on the altar. We said a number of Hail Marys for different people: the helpers,our families and friends.

'Hail Mary, full of grace .The Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen'

Rosary beads have 5 groups of 10 beads close together, so people can remember to say 10 Hail Marys. In between each group is one bead on its own, to remind us to say an 'Our Father'. At each group of 'Hail Marys', we can think about someone or we can think about an event in Mary's life, which is called a 'Mystery'. Next week, we will look at the Mysteries...do you know what they are?